FISHERIES. MARINE. DEFENCE
Underwater Driver Safety & Communication System.
HARDWARE | FIRMWARE | MOBILE/WEB APPS | EMS MANUFACTURING
Project Overview
A safety-critical underwater communication and monitoring system designed to track divers’ vitals and enable two-way communication between divers and surface teams. The system ensures real-time visibility into diver health and location to reduce fatalities and improve emergency response during deep-sea dives.
Client Requirement & Objectives
Vital Monitoring for Divers: The client required real-time monitoring of diver vitals, including core body temperature, ECG, and oxygen levels in the tank. This data needed to be available to both the diver and the surface team to enable quick medical intervention.
Reliable Underwater Communication: The system needed to enable message exchange between divers and from diver to boat within a 2 km radius. Predefined message sets and emergency SOS alerts had to be supported.
Location Tracking & Rescue Readiness: Accurate triangulation-based tracking was needed to determine the underwater location of each diver within a 10-meter surface proximity. This feature had to support rapid rescue during emergencies.
Surface-to-Cloud Data Sync: The boat-based unit had to aggregate all diver data and sync it to an iPad app as well as a cloud server for real-time monitoring and long-term analytics.
System Design & Build
Underwater Communicator Device: Designed a diver-wearable unit equipped with vital sensors, an acoustic modem, a display, and communication capabilities. It displays periodic health data and supports emergency alert messaging.
Surface Tracker & Receiver Unit: Developed a boat-based system with multiple acoustic modems for receiving data from divers. This unit feeds live information to the onboard iPad application and pushes it to the cloud.
Real-Time Triangulation System: Implemented a 3-modem triangulation system on the boat to estimate diver positions with 10-meter accuracy. This allows fast localization during emergency retrieval operations.
iPad & Cloud Interface: Built an iPad application for surface monitoring with live diver tracking, vitals visualization, and SOS management. Integrated cloud sync ensures remote access and historical data analysis.
Project Tech Stack
Key Challenges & Solutions
Sensor Integration & Real-Time Communication: Integrating multiple health sensors in a waterproof, compact device was complex, especially with real-time updates and alerts. We optimized sensor firmware and message prioritization to ensure seamless data transmission and display.
Underwater Message Routing & Reliability: Ensuring that messages and vitals were reliably exchanged within the 2 km underwater range posed signal challenges. We used acoustic signaling with robust encoding to improve reliability in low-visibility marine environments.
Accurate Diver Localization: Triangulating diver position with only three surface modems required precision in hardware placement and signal timing. We built a custom triangulation algorithm calibrated for underwater acoustic behavior to maintain 10-meter accuracy.
System Robustness & Emergency Handling: The system needed to detect vitals anomalies and trigger auto-SOS alerts with minimal latency. We implemented real-time thresholds and alert escalation protocols both on the diver unit and surface system. .
Client
Succorfish is a technology company that aims to offer precise, dependable, and cost-effective monitoring technology that can operate in the most extreme and remote locations on earth.
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